Sunday, 05 Sep 2010
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Marios was born a healthy baby  in 1981 in Nicosia Cyprus.
At the age of one month he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage due to vitamin K deficiency in the maternal milk.
The experts that saw the CT scans gave a very bad prognosis and told  the parents that Marios was going to be severely retarded.
With specialized programmes from England and Israel Marios managed to develop his potential to a degree that allows him today to be self sufficient.

 

At the age of 9 years, accompanied be a psychologist,  he was the first child with special needs in Cyprus, who managed to attend normal primary school.
His school teacher accepted him as a normal child and as a result the other children in his class accepted him also.
While in primary school and for many years after that, Marios had an excellent specialist teacher who tutored him in the afternoons and helped him to increase  his level of knowledge in many areas like Geography, Maths, Greek language and general knowledge. As a result he managed to gain  the respect of other children and to achieve full integration .

 

Marios graduated  primary school at the age of 15. He then went on to attend  secondary school for a short time. In the mean time he also attended handicraft classes in the Nicosia Special School, where he learned woodcraft and basket weaving.

 

His love and talent for handicraft and art became evident early on and was a decisive factor with regard to his future plans.
At age of 18 he began working with clay in a private art school where he is working until today.

 

Marios was 5 before he spoke his first word.
Despite this he has now mastered the Greek language,  speaking and writing fluently. In addition he reads and writes in English as well.
It took Marios two years to learn to tie his shoe laces.
Yet today Marios is creating works of art of unique beauty generating a lot of interest in his work.


His determination, discipline, patience,  perseverance and  incredible mind  power transformed  him into a person  who gives great joy to  those  who are fortunate enough to be near him.

 

Acceptance and specialized education can create a miracle transforming a person with special needs into a person with special abilities as in the case of Marios.

 

Today Marios is a very loving, social and happy young adult with lots of friends and interests, who loves to swim and play basketball .
He is productive and creative in his own way.
His story is a life lesson to all of us , especially those who were fortunate to get to know him.